


a drunken ode to peter parker

by floweryfran



Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Drinking, Fluff, Iron dad and Spider son, Irondad, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Mentions of alcoholism, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Has a Family, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Teen Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark-centric, Uncle James "Rhodey" Rhodes, irondad and spider-son, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23757763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: “You’re an emotional drunk,” Rhodey says. Rhodey has his arms straight in the air and he’s staring at his hands like they’re deeply puzzling to him.“Nuh uh,” Tony says, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “You just. You don’t get it.”“I do get it,” Rhodey says. “I speak Tony language, and Tony language says that you… um, you love the kid. That’s what.”“I do not!” Tony yelps. “I hate him! A scourge on my life and soul! I cannot stand his squeaky shoes and his stupid big ears!” Tony takes a deep breath and then delicately screams. “Who let him have such big ears, he’s going tofall overwhen it’swindythere aresailboatswithsailssmaller than hisears.”Rhodey lets his arms flop down onto his chest and turns his head on the floor. Tony can hear the bumps in his skull rolling on the linoleum. “Man,” he says. “You love that kid so much it’s disgusting.”
Relationships: Peter Parker & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, tony stark & liquor
Comments: 96
Kudos: 779
Collections: Peter Parker Stories, god tier spider-man fics





	a drunken ode to peter parker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheOceanIsMyInkwell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/gifts).



> i'm gifting this to kaleb because i love him there is literally no good reason other than the fact that my heart beats just for him
> 
> the only warnings are for:
> 
> -tony loving his kid! gross, tony, stop being such a good weird quasi-father!  
> -drinking! a loose allusion to tony's historic alcoholism but this is fluff and no sadness!

“You’re an emotional drunk,” Rhodey says. Rhodey has his arms straight in the air and he’s staring at his hands like they’re deeply puzzling to him.

“Nuh uh,” Tony says, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “You just. You don’t get it.”

“I do get it,” Rhodey says. “I speak Tony language, and Tony language says that you… um, you love the kid. That’s what.”

“I do not!” Tony yelps. “I hate him! A scourge on my life and soul! I cannot stand his squeaky shoes and his stupid big ears!” Tony takes a deep breath and then delicately screams. “Who let him have such big ears, he’s going to _fall over_ when it’s _windy_ there are _sailboats_ with _sails_ smaller than his _ears.”_

Rhodey lets his arms flop down onto his chest and turns his head on the floor. Tony can hear the bumps in his skull rolling on the linoleum. “Man,” he says. “You love that kid so much it’s disgusting.”

Tony mulishly says, “Hngrh.”

“Yup,” Rhodey agrees. “You love ‘em. You’ve got a kid. It’s not even your kid. It’s amazing you don’t have a kid, like, from your, um, sperm, but you have an accidental one you found in the gutter or whatever.”

Tony wipes his eyes again. “He’s so weird,” he says. “He talks about this cartoon frog all the time. Pee-pee, or something. I can’t take it. I don’t get him.”

“Yeah you do,” Rhodey says. 

“I do,” Tony says mournfully. He’s skunk drunk. “I do, I do get him, he’s _me_ but with good parents and that’s so weird.”

“So he’s a genius lacking in self-esteem and full of… full of self-destructive tendencies.”

“Yes.” 

“Doesn’t he almos’ die, like, all the time?”

“Yes,” Tony says. “So much. So many stitches. I had to synthesize a new aneaf— anath— anaesthetic,” Tony sounds it out slowly, “so that he won’t, like, need open heart surgery without pain med’cation.”

“Your damn selflessness rubs off,” Rhodey says. “Stop teaching kids that they need to atone for their sins or whatever.”

“No, you just,” Tony says. “He’s. I didn’t.” He grunts in frustration. He wishes someone else could say this. Could carefully carve the top of his skull open and pry his brain out, prod it until it spits out what Tony means rather than whatever nonsense always comes out of his mouth. “He’s a little bit in love with everyone— and with everything,” Tony says. This is a good place to start. “And part of the reason he saves everyone and everything and every fuckin’— smelly, flea-having alley cat is because he loves it- gross- with his whole heart." Tony hiccups. "He loves strangers and— people who are probably assholes, he just loves every single person alive and dead and every square inch of New York City so much that it will kill him one day, I’m sure of it, I’m _terrified_ of it. I didn't teach him. He was born with idiotic kindness.”

“You should make him a suit to match us,” Rhodey says. “So he’s part of the club for real for real.”

“Huh?” says Tony. Then, when his auditory processing catches up, “Rhodey, Honeybear, my dearest Platypus, this is why I keep you around. Your genius, wonderful, brilliant ideas. Did you know I love you? I love you so much it hurts me.”

_“I’m not an emotional drunk,”_ Rhodey says in what is probably a mildly offensive imitation of Tony’s voice but Tony sort of feels like he’s fully underwater and thus he does not particularly care.

“I am going to stand up and make that boy a suit,” Tony says. “Right now. Metal. What should I call it?" He makes a little Punnett square in his brain. "Spider-Man. No, that’s already his name. Spider Machine. No, that’s fucking stupid. Iron Man! No, that’s me.”

“Iron Spider,” Rhodey says. 

Tony turns his head towards Rhodey. He looks sweaty and soft and slack and a little purple in the cheeks. “Genius, I say. Your words are my favorite words. Write down every word you say for the rest of forever, the rest of your life, because I want to read every single one and tattoo it onto my body for posterity.”

Rhodey rubs his knuckles into his eyes. “Stop talking. You existing is giving me a hangover while I’m still drunk. That’s fucking rude.”

Tony grabs onto the table legs and then the top of the lab table, and his fingers feel like they’re made of jello, and he thinks that if he were a jello flavor he would be strawberry. He gets his feet under him, rests his elbows on the table, and catches his breath. “I think we gotta stop drinkin’,” Tony says.

“We did,” says Rhodey. “After, like, twelve.”

“No,” Tony says, shaking his head. His brain feels like marbles rolling around. “Forever.”

“Mm. Oh. Yeah, probably. Especially you,” says Rhodey. “How you gonna stitch up the kid with his superpower an’the— anaesthets— anaesthetics. Anaesthetics. What was I saying?”

“Stitch kid.”

“Right,” Rhodey says, swinging an arm into the air again. “How you gonna stitch ‘em if you’re drunk? Poor bastard’ll come out all zig-zagged.”

“Shit,” Tony says. “Holy fuck. I need to stop drinking right now. I’m a father. How am I supposed to take care of the kid without full use of my… everything?”

Rhodey lets one braced leg glide across the floor to kick Tony on the back of the ankle. “Chill,” he says. “Pepper and I will help. We’ll take all your grown-up juice away.”

“Cold turkey?” Tony says. He’s fairly certain he’s tried to dry up several times already throughout his adult life but it never quite stuck all the way. Something always happens and scotch always tastes so nice. 

“Nah, that’s too hard,” says Rhodey. “Carefully. Slooowly. Like, three hour aeronautics lecture junior year slow. And then we’ll put you in therapy. Maybe an AA group.”

“Ew,” Tony whines. “I don’t like talking to people.”

“You talk to me,” Rhodey says.

“And I’m starting to _regret_ it,” says Tony. He stops leaning on the labtop and the room sort of shifts into place. He pulls up a holoscreen. “FRIDAY,” he says, “sweet my lady, sweet my FRIDAY, please pull up Spider-Man’s suit schematics. Please.”

She does.

Rhodey says, from the floor, “Dude, your phone is totally ringing right now.”

“What?” Tony says. His brain catches up. “Oh, shit. FRIDAY, can you… um, pick it up?”

She does.

_“Hey, Mister Stark!”_ chirps the answering voice. 

Tony leans back on the labtop so he can smile mushily without tipping over. “Hey, kiddo, what’s crackin’?”

_“Mm, not much,”_ says Peter. _“How are you?”_

“I’m great,” Tony says honestly. He has already forgotten whatever it was that inspired him to call Rhodey over for an emergency liquoring up, an urgent boozening of the soul. “Say hi to Rhodey.”

“Hi, kid,” says Rhodey from the floor. 

_“Oh, holy cow! Hi, Colonel Rhodes!”_ says Peter. _“I saw you on the news two days ago— that ceremony thing at area fifty-one.”_

“Oh, yeah,” says Rhodey, smiling. “That was cool. I like the alien things. Nice break from monotony.”

“Speaking of breaks from monotony,” says Tony, knuckling his eyes and gently smacking at his cheeks in a stupid attempt to sober up enough to not slur his way through this conversation, “what’s got you on my ringer this fine evening?”

_“Oh,”_ Peter says. _“Well, I was wondering if I could come over tomorrow because May is pulling a double shift and I want to abuse your culinary prowess for my personal benefit.”_

Rhodey snorts. 

“Yeah, sure,” Tony says, kicking backwards blindly. By the thud and the huff Rhodey lets out, he’s fairly sure he hit his target. “I’ll make pasta or something.”

_“Pasta or something is my favorite,”_ Peter says happily. 

“Carbonara?” Tony offers. His eyeballs hurt from focusing so hard. He rests the side of his head on the table and presses his thumb into his exposed temple. “I could just do tomato sauce. Oh, something with anchovies. Can you eat those?”

_“Yup,”_ Peter says. _“They pass the kosher test.”_

“Perfecto,” Tony says. That word feels so weird in his mouth, a whole fucking papaya, how did Americans adopt it? And why? A whole extra syllable for one letter. He looks up again and sees the suit schematics in front of him. “Oh!” he says. “I might have a surprise little, ah, project for us to work on in the lab, if you want.”

_“Absolutely,”_ Peter says, always so eager, even without knowing what's awaiting him. 

“Alright, kid,” Tony says, feeling all gross. He stupidly wants to, like, absorb the kid in his chest and hide him behind his ribs to make sure no one can ever hurt him ever again. Such a good kid. It’s appalling. Disgusting. “Go to sleep, it’s a school night. Six hours and all that.”

_“Ugh, fine, Mister Stark,”_ Peter says. _“Goodnight. And goodnight, Mister Colonel, sir!”_

“Rhodey, kid,” Rhodey says. “For the eighth time.”

_“When that stops sounding like the height of disrespect, you’ll be the first to know,”_ says Peter. _“Goodnight,”_ he sings one last time, then hangs up.

Tony slumps the entire upper half of his body loosely over the lab table and grins, stupid and very close to drawing up some adoption papers or something.

“That’s your kid,” Rhodey says, blissed out. “I can’t believe I’m an uncle and that little twerp is your kid.” Tony peers wonkily over his shoulder and sees Rhodey has a big white toothy grin spread across his face. Tony wants to kick his teeth in and cuddle into his neck in equal parts. 

“That’s my kid,” he repeats. He looks from his drunken, trembly hands to the Spider suits hovering in front of him, and says, with conviction, “Shit.”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this to procrastinate writing a three-page final project of a short story based on a frank o'hara poem. he's one of my all time favorite poets, so this really was awfully stupid of me. i hope this is a nice break from [sarcasm squad](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23582320/chapters/56582200)!! 
> 
> i hope you're all safe and healthy <3


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